


you make me feel good

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Series: losers who deserve each other [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: HPFT, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Harry Potter Next Generation, M/M, Quidditch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 20:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15032378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: Albus is certain that he is his parents' least favourite child. James is a star quidditch player and Lily is some kind of Transfiguration whiz with more friends than she knows what to do with. Albus is, in a word, unremarkable.So obviously his only option is to piss them off, if he can't please them. And what would piss them off most? Coming home and pretending Scorpius Malfoy is his boyfriend.It's only for two weeks, what could happen?





	you make me feel good

**Author's Note:**

> For the Prefects' Celebration challenge on HPFT! The prompts were:
>
>> \-- vacation: can include a trip or a staycation  
> \-- a “meet the family” situation which includes any kind of families or relationships  
> \-- a topic relating to Pride Month: coming out, first kiss, the first time a character realized they were queer, etc.
> 
> so I decided to go for a hat trick.
> 
> Many thanks to ao3 user renaissance who helped with plotting; Kit who invented the backyard quidditch set; jamie on the R/S discord server for being an endless supply of Christmas Fake Dating tropes; and Isobel, Sian, Bex and Ineke for cheerleading this and helping where I got stuck! I've never written Albus or Scorpius before, and I haven't written next gen since 2009 (and even then, only once) so this was an adventure. (Also, to be clear: I have absolutely nothing against Scorose.)

No matter what he had to do over the next two weeks, Albus thought, nothing could be too high a price for the look on his father's face right now. Harry Potter, hero of the Second Wizarding War, Senior Auror, Order of Merlin (First Class), and one-time extremely reluctant winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award, was so pale Albus thought he might faint.

Albus grinned as Harry tried to school his face into something that wasn't horror as he looked down at Scorpius Malfoy's hand clasped firmly in Albus's. His mother was apparently not on the platform, which just meant he would get a repeat performance of this as soon as they got home — it was the gift that kept on giving! Truly, someone was smiling on him. That person, unfortunately, was not Scorpius Malfoy, who was instead looking increasingly worried and slowly tightening his vice-like grip on Albus's hand. 

"Lovely to see you Dad! I finally convinced Scorpius to come to ours for Christmas, since he's my boyfriend now.” He didn’t miss the way his father winced at that. “Come on, I've only been talking about him for five years, you can't say you didn't see this coming." Honestly, the hardest part of all this would be keeping a straight face. He fought to keep from laughing as Harry tried to smile at Scorpius but instead looked faintly pained.

"Hello, Scorpius," he said, holding out his hand, which Scorpius took with the air of a man condemned.

By the time that torturous exchange was over, James had arrived, having finished doing whatever it was Star Quidditch Players did when temporarily farewelling the rest of their pack. Lily was still hugging her friends and laughing that dreadful high-pitched laugh that sounded like glass breaking, so Albus had to tolerate hearing his dad and James talk enthusiastically about how the Pride of Portree had absolutely smashed the Wigtown Wanderers, which had upset the standings and thrown off someone-or-other’s predictions for the Chudley Cannons to do…something…okay, so Albus didn’t pay any attention. It was _terminally_ dull, and he had better things to do like imagine how much his mother would stutter through being “supportive” of his choices.

Finally, after a conversation in which Harry refused to budge when James pointed out he could side-along Apparate Lily while Harry side-along Apparated Albus and they wouldn’t need the car at all (“I passed my exam!” “That means you successfully Apparated once. Albus did the splits once, but I wouldn’t rely on him for a repeat performance.”), they were on their way home. James was miffed about the whole Apparition thing, and Lily was talking a mile a minute about some Third Year drama that had transpired involving the mistletoe (Albus thought that Third Year was quite young to be getting into mistletoe-related dramas), and while usually Albus would be dreading arriving at home, this time he couldn’t wait. 

Sure, he couldn’t wait for the look on his mum’s face when she heard that he and Scorpius were dating, but just Scorpius sitting there squished into the back seat next to him was a solace. Scorpius wasn’t brash and obnoxious like his siblings, and Albus was guaranteed to have at least _one_ person on his side for the next fortnight.

Even though holding hands was no longer strictly necessary, Scorpius hadn’t let go, though he had loosened his grip somewhat so Albus’s fingers weren’t turning purple. Harry couldn’t see their hands clasped together from the driver’s seat, so Albus could have pulled away, but he quite liked it — it was comfortable. Despite everything, pretending to be Scorpius Malfoy’s boyfriend was easier than he expected.

* * *

“Could you pretend to be my boyfriend for the Christmas holidays?”

“...Why?” Scorpius was looking at him as if he’d declared plans to join Puddlemere United once he got out of school. He was sitting on Albus’s bed in the Hufflepuff dormitory and supposedly drafting a Potions essay, but in reality just drawing a very detailed caricature of Professor Oddpick.

Albus opened his mouth and then closed it, realising in the moment before he said it that his reason was going to sound enormously stupid. Scorpius was still staring at him and didn’t look like he was going to let up, though, so he opened his mouth again. “James got a letter from the Wigtown Wanderers asking if he wanted to try out for their reserve team. And apparently Lily did something in Transfiguration that was so impressive that Professor Chowdhury wrote to Mum and Dad about it.”

“I’m...not seeing how this means I’ve got to pretend to date you.” Scorpius Malfoy may have been his best friend for almost five years, but sometimes he was unbearably thick.

“I don’t have any skills, so it’s not like I’m going to get their attention that way,” Albus said, and Scorpius flicked him on the arm.

“Of course you have skills, you nitwit. You’re better in almost every class than I am.”

(This was not a high bar to clear, but Albus judiciously chose not to mention that.)

“Not skills they value, anyway. So it’ll be easier to get their attention by pissing them off.”

Scorpius was frowning now, and Albus could see the cogs turn in his brain as he said, “I thought you said they reacted well to you coming out?”

“They did! They said they’d be ‘supportive of anything I did’ and they would ‘always love me’, which is clearly garbage because if they ranked their children, I would be at the bottom.”

“That’s how ranking works, Al.”

“Look, please? Will you? It’s only for two weeks, and it’s not even like we have to do much to prove it to them. We probably won’t even need to snog.” The thought of snogging _anyone_ in front of his parents was horrifying.

“Are you saying I’d be a bad kisser, Potter?”

Albus rolled his eyes. “No, you know what I mean, you tosser. Does that mean you’ll do it?”

Scorpius sighed loudly as if he were unreasonably put-upon. “Fine, but you have to dump me. I’m not taking the blame for the tragic end of our relationship.”

“We could...mutually decide we were better off as friends?” Albus suggested, though the face he pulled showed that he knew what he was saying was rubbish.

“That will undermine the entire thing! Maybe I can find you snogging McLaggen, then it’ll be your fault.”

Albus straightened up on the bed, his attempt to look dignified ruined by the fact that he was wearing a pyjama shirt emblazoned with a stylised pygmy puff. “I can’t believe you think I would snog McLaggen. Can I at least snog Belby?”

Scorpius made as if to consider it for a moment. “I’m willing to give you Davies.”

“Done.”

It was only as Albus settled down to sleep ten minutes later, Scorpius having moved to his own bed, that Albus said, “Scorp, do you think...am I going to have to get Davies in on this? Or should I actually snog him?”

Scorpius didn’t reply. He was already asleep, the lucky bugger.

* * *

Scorpius was an excellent actor, Albus was thrilled to discover. He was clearly more fond of method acting than what Albus had initially envisioned, but that didn’t bother him: Scorpius continuing to hold Albus’s hand or cuddle up to him when they were alone was a small price to pay. He was already doing Albus an enormous favour, so beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Scorpius even seemed slightly less terrified of Albus’s mother, though of course anyone with sense could tell you she was infinitely more scary than his dad. Perhaps it was the way she actually succeeded when trying to paste on a smile. Perhaps it was because she was not Harry Potter, Boy Who Lived. Albus made a mental note to ask later.

Albus had debated whether he should put his arm around Scorpius’s waist to greet his mother, but ultimately being a fifteen-year-old boy in the presence of his own parents won out: that would be mortifying even if (especially if) they _were_ really dating. The hand holding worked well enough, and Albus wasn’t even concerned that Scorpius may have been inflicting permanent ligament damage to his fingers this time.

His mum had barely blinked when Albus had introduced Scorpius — the _I’m bringing my boyfriend home for Christmas holidays_ he had scrawled in his last letter had very deliberately not named him, but where his dad had delivered excellently, his mum was...unbothered. 

Dinner that night was the real first test: once his dad had served dinner (chicken korma) and everyone had begun eating (Scorpius had sat ramrod straight, eyes flicking nervously between Harry and Ginny until it became clear everyone was allowed to eat), there were a few minutes of silence before Ginny said, “So I imagine your romantic relationship is relatively new, right? How did it begin?” 

Albus was fairly confident that he could pass off the way Scorpius paled as terror of his Famous Parents instead of, say, panic that they had not yet thought up this lie. Admittedly, they should have, but this plan wasn’t terribly well thought out in the first place.

“You never told us Scorpius was gay,” Harry said. Albus couldn’t quite figure out his tone — was it accusatory?

“He’s bi, and why would I? It wasn’t relevant.” 

Presumably sensing a fight was coming on, Ginny said, “Harry,” warningly. Albus felt oddly satisfied that he wasn’t the one being told off. “Anyway,” she said, turning to him, “go on, how did it start?”

“It wasn’t a big thing, we just...you know, we already spent all our time together, and we just kind of realised? I mean, he realised first, but he didn’t say anything,” Albus said, waving a fork in Scorpius’s direction. “And then I cottoned on and voila. It’s a boring story.” He shrugged. “Sorry he didn’t kill a basilisk for me or something.” 

He grinned at Scorpius, satisfied that he had concocted a perfectly believable lie, and found that Scorpius was blushing. That was...weird? He hadn’t said anything blush-worthy, he hadn’t thought.

His mum quickly changed that, though.

“And you’re being safe, right?” she said.

At the same time, Harry and Albus both said, “Ginny!” and “Mum!” loudly, wearing identical expressions of mortification.

“Look, I’m just saying,” Ginny said, apparently immune to the way the rest of the table wanted to melt into the floor. “There are some books in the library.”

“Ginny!” said Harry again, and Albus saw that Ginny was trying not to smile.

“Anyway,” said James loudly, casting around the room wildly, “the uh, how’s Mrs Dobson, Mum? Did she end up buying that third Kneazle?”

The rest of dinner passed in relative silence, everyone too afraid to say anything lest they hear more details of their mother’s sex life.

Well, they’d...survived that. For a certain measure of surviving, anyway.

* * *

Albus felt Scorpius flinch at his side when they entered the cacophony of noise that was the Burrow on Christmas and Albus squeezed his hand. He supposed that Scorpius wouldn’t be used to such a rowdy crowd — he didn’t even have siblings, and wasn’t his extended family pretty small? He was being thrown into the dragon cage with the Burrow — but at least there weren’t any babies anymore. Those had been some _extremely_ trying holidays.

Everyone had been forewarned about Scorpius, so there were no terribly exciting reactions, but Uncle Ron did not manage to hide his distaste, grimacing as he shook Scorpius’s hand. (It was probably for the best that Aunt Hermione was standing next to him and glaring the whole time.) Once everyone had arrived and they’d done the rounds of slightly awkward introductions and greetings, Molly called everyone to the front room where the Christmas tree and the presents were.

The first presents to be opened were of course the Weasley jumpers. Molly made them every year, even though it was getting a bit ridiculous because Victoire hadn’t grown at all in years, so Albus had no idea what she was doing with all of them. This year Albus’s was light blue with a navy A on it, but what shocked him was Molly turning to Scorpius next to him and producing a wrapped jumper for him, too. Scorpius unwrapped it, glancing at Albus uncertainly, only to pull out...a matching jumper. His had an S on it, of course, but the colours matched Albus’s and Albus blushed as Molly awaited Scorpius’s reaction.

He put it on immediately, and it felt like the whole room let out a collective breath. 

Molly hadn’t been _enthusiastic_ about Scorpius’s presence, but Albus was glad to see that Scorpius had figured out the Correct Thing To Do. He wondered how long he could make Scorpius wear the jumper — the rest of the week? Until they went back to school? _At_ school? The possibilities were endless.

After the jumpers, it became far less formal, with people exchanging presents and calling out names in a hubbub of chatter and ripping paper. Albus received mountains of chocolate, the books he’d asked for, and a red-faced Scorpius handed him an impeccably wrapped present that he unwrapped to find a brand new, quite expensive gobstone set he’d been eyeing the last time they were in Hogsmeade. He’d had the case engraved with Albus’s name and the card was signed “love, Scorpius”. Albus should have thought of that — boyfriends probably didn’t sign Christmas cards with “from your favourite loser”, as he had. Scorpius was so much better at this fake dating thing, and Albus was going to owe him a mountain of chocolate to repay him.

He had to do some undignified wiggling underneath the tree to find the present he’d got for Scorpius, but eventually he retrieved it and placed it triumphantly in Scorpius’s lap. “Granddad helped,” he admitted as Scorpius pulled out a CD player. “I know they’re really old, but we couldn’t work out how to get the new ones to work with magic instead of electricity? So—”

His explanation was cut off by Scorpius hugging him and kissing his cheek. “Thank you,” he said. “You’re the best.” Something squirmed in Albus’s stomach and he looked away, feeling unreasonably pleased at Scorpius’s reaction.

As they were going into the dining room for lunch, Fred called out, “Mistletoe!” and everyone glanced upwards to see who the unlucky victims were — and Albus was the first one to spot the sprig of white berries above his head.

The little wiggle the mistletoe gave as Albus gave it a second look confirmed that it was Weasley Wizard Wheezes Mischievous Mistletoe™, and he grabbed Scorpius’s arm to make sure he didn’t move. The tales of what happened when people refused to kiss under the mistletoe always differed slightly, but had once included a sluggishly-bleeding head wound, so Albus wasn’t going to risk it.

“Every year!” Molly said, rounding on Fred. “Every year I tell you all not to put any mistletoe up — George! George did you supply your son with—” The sound faded as she left the room to find his uncle George, who definitely did supply the mistletoe.

Fred had now been joined by a small collection of cousins who were all grinning (James was outright laughing) at their predicament. 

“Go on, it’s not like you haven’t kissed before! You’re just lucky Scorpius didn’t have to kiss Rose or someone.”

“Oi!”

“No offence meant, Rose.”

Albus was too busy looking at Scorpius’s face to see Rose punch Fred in the arm, but he heard it.

Scorpius was so red that in any other circumstance Albus would mock him for it. He gave Albus a small smile and a shrug and leant in slowly, giving Albus ample time to react if he preferred possible head trauma to a kiss from his best mate. The kiss was just a quick peck on the lips (they had an audience! Also, this wasn’t real — why did that only occur to Albus second?), but Albus was surprised to discover the Scorpius’s lips were soft and the experience was not half as traumatic as he might have expected.

Some miscellaneous cousin whistled and Albus flipped them the bird, only to be shouted at a moment later by Ginny.

If he kept staring at Scorpius for the rest of the day, well, it was only for verisimilitude.

* * *

A week of gingerbread, eggnog and snowball fights later, Albus found that he kept forgetting he was meant to be pretending to be Scorpius’s boyfriend. It helped plenty that they could beg embarrassment about public affection, of course, but the smaller stuff — the hand-holding, the curling up next to him on the sofa with hot chocolate after a vicious defeat in the ongoing snowball wars, Scorpius kissing him on the cheek when Albus made him tea — it all felt natural and he barely thought about it now. He could tell Scorpius still thought about it, at least sometimes: the momentary hesitations, him tensing up with Albus put his arm around him, the blushing when Albus found him looking. At least one of them had their head on right.

New Year’s Day brought the Official Annual Potter-Weasley Quidditch Match. Even though they played it in an isolated clearing far away from Muggle eyes (and the adults put up various Muggle-repelling wards), they weren’t allowed a _proper_ quidditch set. James constantly complained that the quaffle was too light and the snitch was too slow and the bludgers barely even bruised, but there was no way he was going to get away with having an illegal quidditch set when their dad was an Auror. ("That's just because you want Gryffindor to win the Cup instead of Ravenclaw. You don't even have any children in Gryffindor, Dad!" "When have I ever given the impression I want Gryffindor to win? I'm not getting you an illegal quidditch set, James.")

Albus couldn’t stay upright on a broom to save his life (much to the disappointment of his parents) so he had long been relegated to referee. (He wasn’t terribly good at reffing either, but no one else wanted to miss out on actually playing.)

When the teams had been sorted out, James and Victoire as team captains picking out players in turns, it became clear that they had odd numbers and Scorpius hadn’t been assigned a team. When Lily pointed it out, Teddy, ever magnanimous, said he was happy to help Albus referee and give his spot to Scorpius. 

“Nah, I can just be the second ref,” Scorpius said, holding up his hands. 

“And what, you and Al will just spend the whole time snogging instead of calling all the fouls Teddy will miss because he gets distracted writing down an idea for a new potion or something?”

“That was one time, James!” Teddy said, sighing.

“Yeah, and Dom almost made me Nearly Headless Nick.”

“Go on, Scorp, I’ve never seen you play quidditch,” Albus said, grinning wickedly.

“Yeah, for a reason,” Scorpius mumbled in an undertone. Turning to everyone else, he said, “Fine, yeah, so I’m a beater on the orange team, yeah?”

When Teddy gave him his beater’s bat, Albus didn’t miss how Scorpius eyed it thoughtfully, weighing it in his hand. He just wasn’t sure what it _meant_.

Five minutes later, as Teddy called for a second penalty to the purple team when Scorpius very blatantly fouled Dominique _again_ by using his bat to throw her broom off course, he realised what was happening.

“Teddy! Teddy, wait,” Albus said just before Teddy blew the whistle for Dominique’s penalty shot. He had to think fast. “He’s going to try to get booted — you know Victoire will bench him if he keeps drawing penalties like that. If I give you all the Honeydukes you want when I get back to school, can you just...not call them?”

Teddy considered for a moment, glancing up at the players hovering above them. “I’ll ignore all the fouls on Dom. Serves her right, you would not _believe_ how annoying she is when Victoire and I are—”

“No, nope, I do not want to know what you and Victoire are doing,” Albus said quickly. He had no idea why Scorpius was targeting Dom so much, but barring some weird incident back when Dominique was at school with them, it could have been that Scorpius (correctly) guessed that no one would mind since Dom was usually such a notorious fouler herself. 

Three minutes later, when Scorpius hit a bludger at Dominique despite the fact that she was nowhere near the quaffle, Teddy didn’t call it even when James shouted that that was _clearly_ a foul. Albus thanked Helga Hufflepuff that his sort-of-cousin had such a big weakness for chocolate.

It went on for far longer than Albus expected it to: twenty minutes in, the score was 40-30 in the purple team’s favour but when Scorpius performed his eighth foul on Dominique that Teddy mysteriously didn’t see, Victoire called a time out. 

She flew down from her position at the goalposts as James arrived from the other end of the pitch, still holding the quaffle. 

“Teddy, what on earth are you doing?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “I saw you watching that last foul, you can’t deny it.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Teddy said, and Albus admired his perfectly innocent expression. Did being a metamorphmagus mean he was better at poker faces? He’d have to ask him some time.

Victoire shook her head. “Scorpius! You’re benched. Give your bat to Teddy.”

Scorpius didn’t even have the decency to pretend to be sad about it. He grinned at Albus as he handed over his bat, and when no one was looking he stuck his tongue out at him. “So I’m second ref now, yeah?”

“I would say try not to spend all your time snogging Al, but honestly, you could probably do that and _still_ do a better job than Teddy. I’m telling Dad about this,” James muttered, but everyone knew it was an empty threat — even if he did tell their father, Teddy could do no wrong in Harry’s eyes. 

Teddy just laughed, and with that drama sorted, play resumed. Dominique’s constant fouling gave the orange team plenty of penalty shots, but Lucy’s enthusiastic but unskilled fumbling returned possession to the purple team often and the score remained tight. 

Every time the quaffle changed ends Hugo and Molly, flying above the main action, would drift towards the quaffle: the snitch was magically tethered to the quaffle instead of the pitch in amateur quidditch sets, which skewed the probability of where the snitch was at any given moment. Despite that clue, the snitch was nowhere to be found — although Hugo had made several mistaken dives.

Just as Rose was about to try to score against Louis, Dom hot on her tail, Scorpius stepped in front of Albus, grinning. “You know what would really annoy James?” he said, and didn’t give Albus a chance to reply before he kissed him.

Later on, Albus had several thoughts about the kiss that escaped him in the moment. The most prominent one was: why would that annoy James? If Dom were about to foul Rose (which she absolutely did, judging from the angry yelling afterwards), then the two of them being too busy snogging to catch it would work in James’s favour, since he was Dom’s captain.

In the moment, however, Albus forgot about the quidditch game entirely. He didn’t hear Rose’s shout as Dom collided with her or James’s laughter. He didn’t hear anything at all. Scorpius had brought a hand up to his face and Albus could feel him smiling against his lips. If asked to describe his previous kissing experience (Eloise Stretton on a Hogsmeade date and Geoffrey Blenkin in an empty corridor), he would have said ‘a bit weird’, ‘sort of slimy?’ and ‘I guess Geoff was alright at it’. 

This was something else. He had no idea who Scorpius had been kissing, but either they were excellent teachers or he was naturally talented. It was still sort of slimy, but he figured that was an inherent downside of kissing, and the rest of it — the way Scorpius laughed softly as he kissed him, the warmth of his hand on his cheek, his other hand curling around his waist and drawing them closer together — was a thorough distraction. 

When James lobbed a bludger at Scorpius’s head, breaking them apart, Scorpius gave Albus one last smile before he called, “That’s a penalty for bumphing, James! Orange, have a penalty shot.” Albus shivered a little despite the warming charm on his coat, noticing the chill for what felt like the first time.

“That was Fred!” James said, looking offended, and Lily nodded, despite the fact that Fred was on her team. (Was her Slytherin attitude wearing off without constant reinforcement from her housemates?) Fred elbowed her, which in Albus’s eyes was as good as an admission.

“Dominique blatched Rose! Smashed right into her! Which you would know if you hadn’t been busy sucking face,” Fred said.

“Fine then,” said Scorpius, grinning as if he’d won the House Cup single-handedly. “A penalty shot for orange and then for purple. Orange can take one first.”

Scorpius slipped his hand into Albus’s as he blew the whistle, and Albus had a lot of trouble caring about the fact that Molly found the snitch ten minutes later, even though James grumbled about it all the way home.

* * *

Two days later, on the last day before they went back to school, Albus and Scorpius were playing with Al’s new gobstones set (Scorpius was losing, naturally) when Scorpius said, not quite managing nonchalance, “How long are you going to wait before you snog Davies, then?”

Albus was confused for a moment until he remembered the plan they’d agreed upon. The month between then and now felt like forever. He considered for a moment, not looking at Scorpius, and pretended he was trying to set up his next shot. “I, uh,” he began, and cleared his throat, daring to glance up at Scorpius’s face. There was such a weird mix of emotions there — sadness and hope and something else he couldn’t place — that it didn’t help at all. Bloody hell, he’d just have to go for it then.

“Uh, I dunno, I was — I forgot that...I kind of forgot we were pretending?” Albus ran his hand through his hair and bit his lip.

Scorpius was silent, and Albus began to think he had made a terrible mistake. Scorpius had given him an out! What sort of a fool was he not to take it? He threw his gobstone and managed to miss every single one of Scorpius’s, earning him a squirt to the face. 

Scorpius held out a hanky, forcing him to look at him, and — and he was smiling? Albus was so distracted by the knowledge that Scorpius wasn’t weirded out that he completely forgot to take the handkerchief on offer, and Scorpius shook his head and wiped the goo that was slowly dripping off Al’s eyebrow himself, his other hand steadying Al’s face in the same place he had cupped it at the quidditch match.

“Did uh — did you — I mean, if you like I can find Davies on the first day back, but I don’t really want...to?” Albus was sure he had been more eloquent after imbibing firewhiskey at James’s birthday, but his thoughts kept scattering every time he registered the sensation of Scorpius touching his face.

"Thank goodness, I don’t think I’ve been subtle about it,” Scorpius said, discarding the hanky now that Albus was goo-free. 

Albus shrugged and looked away, blushing. He thought about how Scorpius would peck him on the cheek goodnight on a deserted landing, and smile from across the room when Albus caught him staring. "Wait — you felt this since the beginning?" he said, remembering how Scorpius had held his hand in the car all the way home.

Scorpius laughed, “Since last year. Can’t believe you didn’t notice. You’re lucky you’re cute, Potter.”

When their lips met, Albus laughed as he realised his plan had succeeded perfectly: opportunities for awkward Potter-Malfoy relations stretched into the future. And next time, they wouldn’t even be faking it.


End file.
